Life in Silver Linings

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I think I know why people leave self-reflection for the week before the new year. Not the small self-reflections, you understand – not the “Oh, I should have thought of writing that on my list and now I have to go out again” kind, or the “Why didn’t I learn this last time I did it?” kind…

All good ‘Finish the Sentence Friday’ posts tend to start with, well…a sentence you have to finish. Except in this case I can’t, which is an indictment of my skill as a writer, or a comment on my experience. I rather think it’s the latter. The sentence to consider boiled down to ‘The Blogosphere is…

“I can think of younger days when living my life Was everything a man could want to do. I could never see tomorrow; I was never told about the sorrow..” So much of my life has been wasted on sorrow and heartache. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Almost glamourous – as though I were in a movie,…

Whatever else you might say about it, fear is a powerful motivator. Shame – that combination of guilt, humiliation, and fear – so easy to internalise and apply in a plethora of situations, is something which can effect stunning behavioural changes in otherwise (perhaps) quite rational human beings. It has a terrible habit of sneaking…

“Write what you know.” That’s what they say – the anonymous ‘They’ so often quoted when the speaker is trying to weight their opinion – as though knowing something enables you to write about it; as though through knowing, your writing would make sense. I could write what I know. I could tell you so…

There’s a place in my life, which gives my stomach a little twist of anxiety when I think of it; a definite mental tug, trying to suck me back in. I need a sharp intake of breath and a deliberate effort to focus – to shake the mental dust from my metaphorical heels, and stay…

HELLO MY LOVELIES *frantic waving* It’s been such an enormously long time, hasn’t it!? I don’t apologise, but I am *so* glad to be back, and continuing my stories of Kenya. I haven’t felt inspired to write for such an awfully long time, and just this morning realised how much it still has the potential…

I stepped off the plane into the Nairobi night, expecting to be hit by a wall of heat, like I’d read in books. I was waiting for something akin to opening the door of a blast furnace and stepping inside, the cool, air-conditioned plane switched for a boiling inferno in spite of the late hour.…

I slide down on the sofa, snuggling deeper into the blanket, which keeps me literally wrapped up in love (it was given to me by my 1000mile heart, my Sunset, my best friend in all the world, and one so similar to me in so many shades of the soul I never thought it possible),…

Tears spar behind my eyelids, vying to be let out, to cascade in torrents of frustration, pathetic self-pity and had-enough-ness. My chest is crushed with the catch of breaths not taken deeply enough and I’m overpoweringly aware of just how much I have to be thankful for, and how much of an ungrateful, hypocritical wretch…